


sleepless

by kalesmay



Category: DC - Fandom, DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-25 23:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9851066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalesmay/pseuds/kalesmay
Summary: Jason is prone to nightmares. Roy is prone to fixing him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i just really like jayroy and i'm trying to get back into writing. find me on tumblr @ batfamz

Jason could taste it.

The dirt, filling up his mouth and throat, chest tight with panic. His fingernails were ripped off, from clawing at the coffin. He wasn't making much progress. Jason was buried alive.

"Bruce!" He sobbed, into the suffocating earth, muffled by the mouthful of soft dirt. "Help me! Bruce, _please_!"

But Bruce never came, and neither did anyone else.

He woke up sweating.

Jason was used to nightmares, was used to this particular nightmare. But he didn't think he'd ever get over it. There was a sheen of moisture on his forehead and bare chest, which rose and fell with the time of his shaky breaths. Trying not to jostle the body sleeping beside him, he sat up and swung his legs off the bed, head in his hands.

"Babe?" A warm hand pressed onto the small of Jason's back, Roy's chin hooking over his shoulder. "You okay? You're shaking like a leaf, dude."

Jason took a deep breath and leaned into the touch. "I'm...fine, I'm _fine_. Just a bad dream, go back to sleep." He sounded like he was trying to convince himself. Roy didn't get enough sleep as it was, up all night and into the morning trying to make some obscure trick arrow. He didn't need to be up taking care of Jason, too.

Roy snorted. "Not a chance, Jaybird. Wanna talk about it?"

The thing was, Jason _didn't_ talk about it. He makes jokes about the time he died - no one thinks they're funny, not even him - but he doesn't _talk_ about it. Roy's been trying to coax him into it for years, and he figures he might as well start.

"It was just. The time I was -- when I was buried alive? And I had to...had to dig out? I don't know, it's stupid," Jason trailed off. He didn't know _how_ to talk about this.

Roy reached and turned on the bedside lamp, then wiggled around him until his head was laying in Jason's lap, staring up at Jason with big green eyes, surrounded by a fringe of golden lashes. Even in the dim light, Jason could see the patches of freckles on cheekbones, and he wanted to kiss them.

"It's not stupid. I have nightmares all the time, man." Roy offered. Jason brushed the pad of his thumb across a cluster of freckles on his cheek, before he started carding his fingers through the tangles of Roy's orange hair.

He hadn't died and lived to tell about it -- not many people had -- but Roy had nightmare fodder all his own. Roy, unlike Jason, talked about it. He talked and talked until you tuned him out, and then he started saying the things that mattered. Jason, though, never tuned him out. He just pretended to.

He knew Roy had nightmares about relapsing, about losing his friends the way he lost his family, about being left behind. Syringes and powders and shiny bottles danced in Roy's dreams; most nights, he woke up panting. But Roy didn't bottle it up, he went to his workshop and made something out of his pain. Jason just punched a little harder.

And that, _that_ was the big difference between him and Roy, the thing that made his chest feel paralyzed with the fear that this wasn't going to last: Roy was a builder, a fixer, and Jason was a destroyer.

Jason hadn't met a thing, a person, he hadn't broken. It was only a matter of time until it happened to Roy.

Roy hadn't met a problem he couldn't fix. Jason wasn't sure he _could_ be fixed (though he was convinced he was a problem).

But here Roy was, butting his head up into Jason's hand, rubbing circles on his knee with a careful thumb.

Careful, always so careful, like Jason was something fragile and precious and not a damaged mistake who couldn't even stay dead. Roy was constantly soft and gentle with him, and Jason wondered if _he_ was scared of breaking Jason, too.

Jason didn't say anything, just leaned backwards until he was laying back on the bed, pulling Roy with him. They adjusted until Roy was resting his head on Jason's chest, flyaway hairs tickling under his chin.

"Hey, Roy?" Jason's throat felt thick again, full of things he needed to say but wasn't sure how.

"Hm?" Roy hummed, already half asleep, stroking lightly across Jason's ribs. He nudged his head up and rested his chin on Jason's chest, looking at him with half lidded eyes.

"I love you."

Roy smiled around a wide yawn. "Love you too, Jaybird. Let's get some sleep."

And because Roy said it, they did.


End file.
